Hi guys,

I have been lurking on the forums since I had my Zaurus 6000 and finally decided to register, now that I may be of some help

I saw that the Ångström was choosed as the new name for the Familiar/OpenZaurus/OpenSIMPad mega-distro.

Could we get more info on it ?

Is there a schedule for the merge ?

For the moment it seems that the individual distros have their own plan for the future, will they continue to develop on their side ?

Cheers

I hope the name Ångström Is only a joke? If not, it is stupid decision of the Familiar/OpenZaurus/OpenSIMPad teams to choose a name with some special characters as a distro name.

It's not a joke, it's the new name for our Linux distribution. Thankfully, it doesn't really matter whether you find it stupid or not, because the maintainers really like it

As for the plans, well... it will be a unified distribution with machine specific flavours, much like OpenZaurus, OpenSIMpad, and Familiar Linux were in the past - however with the synergie effects like having a common feed, a common website, a common newsletter, common distribution policies, etc.

To improve the quality of the distribution, we will do some necessary changes regarding device responsibilities. Although the final word on that is not spoken yet, it is my sincere recommendation to drop support for machines for which no real commited maintainer exists, i.e. there will probably no Ångström release for the Zaurus 5600 because there are obviously no 5600 owners with enough time and motivation to become a maintainer/developer taking care about that device in OpenEmbedded. In the future we rather have polished releases than releasing blindly compiled images and getting heaps of complaints. This is not possible without a dedicated machine specific maintainer team.

As for the other plans, we will come up with a policy document when we have something concrete. I expect the first Ångström releases shaping up towards the end of this year. We will at least do one more release of OpenZaurus and OpenSIMpad until then. The websites of OpenZaurus and OpenSIMpad will probably phase out then and be merged towards http://angstrom.handhelds.org - finally there will be a central place of information; something we should've had since long. Although Ångström is a spin off of the current OpenZaurus, OpenSIMpad, and Familiar Linux distribution, it looks like Familiar Linux will continue to be maintained as a distribution with changes in workflow and focus.

LeTic, there will be many places to help in that new distribution. Please feel welcome to join the developers' list angstrom-dev@handhelds.org! We will try to establish multiple levels of contribution in that distribution, from tester to maintainer to developer, and more. There's always room for improvement. Oh, and... we need a cool Logo 'Å'

When I see that letter I think pyramid and sun.

Quite a nice association... pyramids are amongst the most impressive solid buildings, and the sun is what makes our galaxy warm and shiny.

Ångström being a solid, user friendly Linux distribution - that's a good image that could be resembled in a logo.

What is now the name of the new distribution? Ångström or Angstrom? You see what happens? The distribution now have two names. And this is the reason while I wrote Ångström is a stupid name for a linux distribution with a international community.



Why I quote this two statements? Because in my opinion the second statement conflicts with the first. The second statement includes the words "user friendly" but the first statmenent say, that the position of the users doesn't matter. Only the maintainers must like what the do. Users doesn't matter.

Sorry to say this, but this was a problem of Open Zaurus. It isn't really user friendly. It is more a project from developers for developers. It is Ok that the developers decide what to do in their spare time. I wouldn't make it differently. But what I missing in OpenZaurus is the integration of the users like KDE it does for example. Ok Angstrom is not really comparable to KDE but a little more user integration would be good and I think it would bring more developers directly or indirectly to Angstrom (for example Application developers). And I think Angstrom should be more than only a distribution from developers to developers in the future.

This criticism ins't because only the name Angstrom. It is more because in my opinion I think OpenZaurus for example is in big parts not user friendly and it is not a open user friendly developer community. Maybe my feeling is wrong but it is my feeling.

Yes. Maybe because it is used similar in Stargate and Stargate Atlantis.

(original answer removed)

I decided to take a break from the forum.

Take care.

Ach Mickey, he's just a single Troll, don't let yourself get pissed off by him. Since nobody fed him, he would have gone away in a matter of days.

And just to make sure: It is hereby declareth that upon the penalty of eternal LARTation nobody shall henceforth be alloweth to feed the Troll that refers to himself as "blachner".

I see no problem. With my character set at least, the two would not be confused for different names. It looks different, I like it, you might not, had luck.



The choice of name was discussed ad nauseum on IRC & the mailing lists - I can't see how to get more inclusive than that.



Indeed it is, that's why we are always harping on about getting other people to join - to write docs & HowTos, and even those less experienced to decide what they have troubles with and try to fix those problems by submitting patches.



Your post is negative, yet you say you'd do it the same way - this is odd. I could have accepted a similar post with the above comment if you'd said what you could/would do to fix the problem. But no.



I agree, and this is what I and others have been trying to do - what would you suggest?



I disagree, to take myself as an example of the people in our community, I don't think I'm overly unfriendly, however I do get annoyed with people being negative and not having any solutions - I really don't think you've added anything by your last post.

In general on IRC, mailing lists, etc. (and this is not just OZ) everyone is doing this in his/her spare time so if you get terse replies it may be that the person you're talking to doesn't have time to write a full reply and is just giving you enough of a hint for you to find the answer yourself, or that you've undervalued their time (by not searching and googling to work [at least some] stuff out, and simply expecting a solution which is a readily available - this is something which really rather annoys me I must admit)



Indeed.


Simon

P.S. I can sympathise with Mickeyl - we all do this in out spare time, especially looking at the forum and answering questions - we should cut the negativity, unless it's associated with a reasonable solution, otherwise it stops being fun.

You can call me a Troll. but it is not true. Ok, maybe I shouldn't write "it is a stupid decision", because nobody likes if its decisions called stupid. Instead I should write: In my Opinion the use of special characters in the distribution name ist a bad decision. I wrote already some reasons why I think this.

Sure it is a matter of taste if you like a name or not. It seems the most like this name, Ok. The main reason I wrote this, wasn't that I like or don't like this name. Usually the name of a Linux distribution isn't very important to me. The main reason was, that in my opinion it isn't a good idea to use special character and umlauts in a name for an initernational project. In my opinion this name isn't user friendly.


Ok my criticism is too late and at the wrong place. You are right.



Yes this is a problem. A problem between user interests and developer interests. Maybe I formulate also a little wrong, what I want to say, because english isn't my native language. I should better wrote: I can understand the developers but it is important to integrate and help the users too and it is important to make it as user friendly as possible. Even it is not the job who most developers want to do in it's spare time.




Ok. Why I wrote this. I read yesterday a lot in this forum. And in some cases I read statemants like "Only the maintainers must like what the do. Users doesn't matter" (Sorry MickeyL that I bring this statemant here as an example again, please don't feel personally atacked). I agree that developers that do the work in their spare time must have fun. But I also think users shoudn't be ignored and "usability" shoudln't be ignored. I think this can lead to more fun in the future. And the feelling users don't matter cames up to me after I read some statements. I don't post here some example because I don't like an endless discussion and I don't like that other people feel personally attacked. But in short, I think the developers shoudn't say "Only what we think and we want is important your user problems aren't". It is Ok. if developers say, sorry we haven't enough time to do this yet or it is for this reason not high on our priority list or this device ins't important at the moment for us, because we don't use it actually ....

Thats very likely me being a SG-1 freak!

But its not unique to SG-1, its even on the dollar bill.

Hi lads and especially Mickey,

I am sorry to have started a troll , I just wanted to get more exiting news about what I believe is a great idea (to merge all existing distrib into one that supports more architecture)

I believe that all what is done from OpenZaurus, Familiar, etc, is very mature and totally go into the right direction since they adopted the OpenEmbedded platform.

The amazing work and late progression should not be shadowed by some inconstructive comment (thanks blachner for your apologies but this still doesn't bring any solution to the issues you are raising).

I totally uderstand Mickey frustration so this time I decided to send you some good feedback

Once again I will disagree with you blachner on the user friendliness of OZ:
- OpenZaurus is a very active project with lots of answer from the developpers on the forum (believe me this is not so common especilally with all the slagging going around).
-The discussion for the new name started in may by Mickey news letter on the OZ, OE websites... why didn't you participated in it ? It was totally opened with a Wiki/ and forum/IRC discussions
- I never saw so much commitment from people like Mickey, lardman, HRw (and all the other that I forgot) to listen to people... you don't believe me ? See thread with all user request packages build on demand by hrw normally 1 day after people requested it. If this is not a user oriented distrib then what is ?

Once again all my love to Mickey, sorry that a discussion that I started finished so badly. Thanks a lot for answering me ! I know that you may not read this post as you decided to take some time off the forum, but know that you still have friends here and people that appreciate the good and hard work you are doing.

Whereas my participation, I will continue testing the product and give back feedback if I found any bugs, but for the moment I am involve in others opensource project that consume my time but I will definitely try to give you a hand before Angstrom is out !

Cheers
letic

Everyone who have an other opinion is a troll? If you think so. I don't think so.

Maybe I used a little to hard words, but I only criticise some points "special characters in distribution name" and "user friendlyness". For the dsitribution name, it is nevertheless my opinion that this distribution name is not the best idea. But it is only my opinion and it is by far not the most important point for the distribution. Some other ideas for Angstrom sounds good and it is good that some projects working together. And I hope also that this improve the usabiltiy.

Dude, for more than half the world "A" is a "special character" "Å" and "ö" are perfectly legitimate Latin 1 glyphs and with any decent desktop envirmonment are just not that difficult to type. Not to mention that fact that if one simply types "Angstrom" in virtually any context it's obvious that they mean "Ångström" (I'm assuming you know what an ångström is). Get over it.

As for "user friendliness" I really get riled up when people who are in no position to contribute to a development effort rail on developers for not making their projects "user friendly". Unless you've actually done the work of taking something from "usable" to "user friendly" you can't even begin to comprehend how much work is involved. It's not unusual for the effort required to make something "friendly" to exceed the effort required to make it initially work!

Case in point, when I rolled up Python into an easy to install/use package for Sharp ROM Zaurii, it took over 400% as much effort as just getting Python to build and run on the Z. I'm now working on an easy to install Sharp Qtopia SDK and it's taken the better part of a week's worth of effort to take something that was working fine for me and make it such that a novice user can install and use it with minimal difficulty. I've spent two days just writing the document that explains it all.

If you want an Open Source project to be more user friendly, don't complain to the developers ... roll up your sleeves and help! Can't code? Learn. It's not magic. Document your learning experience including problems and pitfalls so that there's a concise list of specific issues that need to be addressed. "It's not friendly" is not useful feedback to veteran developers. And don't think that you need to be a kernel hacker to contribute. Don't want to code? Fine, help document. The first step to making something friendly is thoroughly documenting how it works now. You can't streamline a process without a detailed description of a process.

If you want to convince people that you truly want to improve a project (and not just troll) then put your time/money where your mouth is and find a way to contribute. Otherwise you're just leaching off the fruits of someone else's labor while at the same time complaining that it's not quite sweet enough for your taste.

<desperate_attempt_to_bring_rant_back_on_topic>
I don't currently use OE, but I will continue to follow its and Ångström's development to assess their applicability to some embedded Linux systems that I work with. Having rolled my own embedded distro from scratch, I can really appreciate the effort that these projects have put into streamlining the process! You think OE isn't friendly? Try building a ROM the old fashioned way!
</desperate_attempt_to_bring_rant_back_on_topic>

I find it especially amusing that Ångström is allready deemed user-unfriendly without having seen a single release or snapshot. I don't like trolls, but people trolling stuff a-priori is far worse.

We should do a special version for "special" people, replacing /sbin/init with /bin/vi :-)

Your point. Thats true.


Not difficult to type? If it is not on the keyboard it is difficult to type. But one arguement angainst Angstrom and for an other unique name is internet search. Ok, you can just search Angstrom and an other related word. But Ok, for me Ångström is now just Angstrom and we can forget this discussion.

If you can read, you see that I clarify that the name Ångström is a little user unfriendly in my opinion. You also can read that I talk of OpenZaurus and not of the yet non existent Angstrom Distribution when I talk from "user unfriendly".

My failure was to do this in this thread, because it was Off Topic. Yes.

I like vi, because I learned how to use it and because it is available on most Linux/Unix systems. But hopefully you don't take vi as an example of user friendlyness.